Category Archives: reading

construction, Documenting America, Engineering, reading, self-publishing, stock market, Writing

Random Friday Thoughts

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Can a graphics duffer create the print-book cover to go with this? Enquiring minds want to know.

As I look out from The Dungeon windows at 06:47 a.m., the sun is hidden by the tall trees at the rear of our backyard. But enough sun gets through I can tell it will be a sunny day, at least to start. Storms are predicted for tomorrow, and might start in a small way sometime today.

Yesterday was a busy day. In addition to stock trading in the morning, I did a few writer things. I’m trying to create the print book cover for my friend’s book. I made a good start on it despite the fact that it’s been a year since I created a cover. Using G.I.M.P., a no-cost alternative to Photoshop, I managed to get the overall sizes of each part of the cover in place. I found some good notes I wrote on that. Alas, I’ve forgotten enough that I didn’t get it done in the time I had. Hopefully I will this morning.

I then at a quick lunch, hopped in the van, and went to do some engineering work, final inspection of one site and monthly inspections on three other sites. I completed the final inspection, with a little arguing with the contractor thrown in. Not bad arguing, just them obviously not appreciating the things I found. I got a little testy at one point when they gave new information about a structure I’ve been trying to get them to modify. Why they didn’t give me that info months ago is a mystery.

I went to the first monthly inspection, walked the site, saw only one or two things out of the ordinary. This has been a problem site, with me constantly finding things they are doing in violation of City codes. They’ve started to get much better. They had installed almost all the handicapped ramps incorrectly. I decided to let the first few go, but I found a new one wrongly constructed. They will have to change that. They also had one where they attempted to construct it correctly, but came up short. Fortunately the correction is inexpensive.

The engineering work to that point took me from 12:30 p.m. to about 3:30 p.m., with two more sites to go. I was beat and dehydrated, as I hadn’t taken water with me. I decided not to do the other two inspections, leaving them to the employee of my former company who joined me yesterday for training purposes. I came home, rested an hour, then wrote the reports for the two inspections.

Then I took it easy in the evening. We had plenty of leftover chili to use for taco salad, so had that for supper, and a slice of turtle pie for dessert. I spent much of the evening on the computer working on the reports as well as trying to find some photos in the company files to prove the point I tried to make on site.

I’ll soon be creating a cover for “Documenting America: Making the Constitution Edition”. It will be a simple re-creation of this one.

I wrote an e-mail to the CEI project manager, telling her my inability to do the two other inspections was “most likely a combination of too much sun, frustration with [the other] engineer and developer and contractor, age, and perhaps a creeping retirement-starting-to-care-a-little-less each month.” I haven’t heard back from her yet. I have trained the other man to do these inspections and had no doubt he could do the remaining two and write acceptable reports.

I spent no time in the sunroom, didn’t work on my own books at all, didn’t make much progress on my to-do list. My wife and I did a little reading aloud, and we took a very pleasant call from our oldest grandson and had evening devotions with him. Our reading carried us after normal bed time.

So, up this morning after sleeping through the night, ready to “awaken the dawn” that I see unfolding out the window. It’s fully light out, though the trees still obscure direct rays. On to other things for a couple of hours, then back to the book cover work.

Carlyle, reading, research, self-publishing, Writing

Still Reading Thomas Carlyle

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My first book on Thomas Carlyle, published 2014

Most of my posts lately have been related to my immediate works-in-progress or my other reading, with an occasional dabble in an inspirational post. I have a thought for the latter, based on study for yesterday’s Life Group lesson. I’m not quite ready for that yet.

So, I’ll stick with what I intended to post about today, which is my current reading in the writings of Thomas Carlyle. It’s been a while since I’ve written about him. “Carlyle” is a category for my blog posts, so you could easily check and see what I’ve written about him before.

I have published one book about him, a gathering and reprinting of his articles written 1820-1823 for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. So far as I know, my book is the only time all his articles for that publication have been gathered in one publication.

I’ve been slowly, over several years, working on two other books about Carlyle. One is about his book Chartism. The other is a Comprehensive Chronological Composition Bibliography. Both of these works have stalled, mostly  because they are simply lower on my writing priority list than others. Perhaps that will change one day, but it’s the case for now.

Carlyle changed from being a compassionate man to a promoter of slavery. How that change came about is the subject of my Carlyle studies.

But I’m back to reading him. From 1827 to 1833 Carlyle’s main writing was a series of articles for the Edinburgh Review and other literary magazines. Emerson gathered these and published them in three volumes around 1839. It was so popular in the USA that a British edition soon followed. Today they are considered one of Carlyle’s major works.

I’ve read a couple of the articles before, and started a couple more, but never got very far with it what have come to be called Carlyle’s Miscellanies. I haven’t wanted to put money into buying them in print (or e-book), and had never found an e-copy of good quality of a public domain version. About two weeks ago I went looking for them again, and, lo and behold, I found an e-book re-issue of the essays, of excellent quality, all in one volume, I think.

I’m reading them on my smart phone. That’s not a totally new experience, since I recently read Locke’s Two Treatises of Government on my smart phone. Still, reading books on phones will be somewhat new for a while. I’m enjoying it there, however. I turn the phone sideways and slightly enlarge each page to fill the window. So far I’ve read two of the essays, the first two in chronological order: “Jean Paul Friedrich Richter” and “State of German Literature”, both from the Edinburgh Review in 1827. I finished the second one last night.

Why am I doing this? Why distract myself from my writing or research for my writing. I can only plead a reduction in sanity, or perhaps an increase in delusion. I sometimes think myself a scholar and want to read something that either is or seems to be scholarly. Carlyle seems to fit. And, in case I ever do get around to finishing that Chartism book, these readings might actually play a part in it.

The Richter article was easy enough to understand, and I found it informative and even enjoyable. The German Literature article was tedious, even boring. I think this is where I bogged down before in my reading of his essays. The book has some good parts to it. I think I would grasp more with another reading. Carlyle, like so many writers of his time, wished to write poetry along with prose. He left a number of poems to us, none of which are highly thought of. I may pull out some of his thoughts on German poetry, really about poetry in general, and see if I couldn’t make essays out of them.

Queued up on my phone is his third essay in the book, “Life and Writings of Werner”. I don’t believe I’ve rad this one before. I don’t know Werner, so am not looking forward to reading it, except to know it will perhaps sate my need to be reading something intellectual. If I can get through this third essay, there’s hope that I will get through the entire book.

Meanwhile, should you buy and read my previous book on Carlyle? I’m really just an editor in that book. I wouldn’t recommend it, not unless you want to make study of Carlyle a significant intellectual enterprise. If you do, be forewarned that, after publication, I found an embarrassing error in the chapter on Pascal. I corrected it in the e-book, but it remains in the print book, awaiting my taking the half-hour needed to make the correction and republish. Seeing as I have to migrate all my print books from CreateSpace to Amazon KDP, I’m planning to get that correction done during the migration.

 

Bible study, miscellaneous, reading, trials

A Self-Taught Lesson

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In recent weeks I have experienced three instances where “wrongs” were done against me, at least in my perception. I don’t want to go into any details. Let’s just say that two of the three are certain, while the third is “iffy”.

The last two of these, the certain ones, were on the same day,  almost on top of each other. It threw me for a loop for a couple of days. I went around depressed—not a clinical type depression, but more of a  wondering how to handle the two situations. One of them, if I didn’t want to, I would never have to see the person again. The other didn’t include that luxury. The third, the lesser one, was more a case of where I was very disappointed in someone’s words, words not directed at me but at a situation in life in general.

If I remember correctly, the two things happened on a Friday. Saturday evening, as is my habit, I took a look at the Life Group lesson I would teach the next day. It was Jesus cursing the fig tree, it shriveling up, and how he taught the disciples from this. It’s found in the two of the gospels, Matthew and Mark. I studied from my “Harmony of the Gospels”. It’s been enjoyable to use my own study tool for this series.

Jesus cursed the fig tree on Monday of Holy Week. He said, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” It was on Tuesday, when they passed the same way to go to Jerusalem that the disciples noticed the tree had withered. They questioned Jesus about how this happened, to which he replied that through prayer this was possible, using his metaphor of the mountain being cast into the sea.

But then, he added something, sort of the unsolicited advice he gave when he noted the true condition of someone’s mind and heart before they did. He said, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sin.” This particular teaching is found in Matthew but not Mark.

This hit me hard. I realized I held something against someone, against three someones. If I were praying, and if I expected my prayers to be successful, I needed to forgive them. I wasn’t to wait for them to realize the wrong they’d done and ask for forgiveness. My forgiving them was to be instantaneous, and not asked for. This wasn’t something to delay into the future, when next we meet.

As I studied my lesson, I kept coming back to that concept. Maybe the things I held against these people weren’t wrongs at all. Perhaps my perception of what they did was wrong. Perhaps what they did was unintentional: they didn’t recognize what the consequences of their action or words would be. None of that mattered. I was to forgive.

My forgiveness would be for me, not for them. They wouldn’t know about it. The scripture doesn’t say I’m to seek them out and express this forgiveness to them. How would that sound? “Hey, sir or madam, you don’t realize you wronged me, and you haven’t asked for forgiveness, but I forgive you anyways.” No, I don’t think that’s what Jesus intended. You forgive, immediately, whether they ever ask or not.

So, I did that. I forgave each of them, and hold no animosity to them. In one case I could see that the person was actually helpful, but did so in a clumsy way. Another was a simple mental lapse due to disorganization, certainly with no evil intent. The third is a difference of opinion, and will likely forever remain so. I ought to be able to allow others to have different opinions without holding a grudge.

I learned my lesson. Let’s hope that I’ll be able to put it into practice going forward without having those bad moments of moping about wrongs or perceived wrongs.

Politics, reading

Thoughts on the Rising Cost of Health Care

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I’ve made a few political posts on An Arrow Through the Air (okay, perhaps more than a few), but tend to avoid them. Plenty of news outlets and commentators do a good job saturating us with news and news analysis.

But this one I must, because I found a magazine article that agrees with me and presented the same analysis of health care costs that I did at least five years ago.

Somehow we got on the mailing list for Imprimis, the magazine published by Hillsdale College. We’ve never given them money, so it was a curiosity when it first showed up in our mail. It’s a good magazine, however. I tend to read the issues in batches, whenever the magazine basket gets to overflowing.

Last week I read the September 2018 issue. The article is titled “A Short History of American Medical Insurance” by John Steele Gordon. I don’t know him, but I like his article. Perhaps I like it, in part, because he agrees with views I already had, yet gave me new information at the same time.

I’ve said for a long time that things paid for with other people’s money tend to rise in price faster than things you pay for with your own money. Or, put another way, what you don’t pay for yourself and directly you won’t fight to keep the cost low.

Health insurance isn’t exactly other people’s money, but, when you go to the doctor’s office and have a $25 co-pay, or when you pic up a med at the pharmacy and have a $4 co-pay, you tend to not pay any attention to the actual price of the thing. $4 for a month of pain pills? Great. $25 to see my PCP to see about my chronic condition? Best bargain in town.

Thus, forgetting that the actual cost of going to the doctor is $188, with you paying $25 and insurance paying $163. Except, you have to pay for the insurance, but that’s taken out of your paycheck and you never see it. And for sure you never see your employer’s contribution. The prescription or office visit looks like a bargain, but it probably isn’t. You see no need to fight to keep the cost down, or find a lower-priced alternative.

Slowly, over the years, those who provide those services learn they can increase their costs to a fairly high level, up to a point where the insurance company starts pushing back.

Now, I realize you shouldn’t purchase medical care based on low-bidder. These are professional services. You want the best you can get. The problem is, removing the payment away from the consumer results in the consumer simply not paying much attention, and prices go up.

Don’t worry; it’s not just you. A hundred million purchasers of medical services in America are doing the same thing. One person trying to buck the system isn’t going to get far. It’s an unfortunate result of believing that the “windfall” of having your bills paid for with other people’s money means you pay more in the end. You paid for a big chunk of your health insurance. And, if your employer didn’t pay for the rest of your health insurance, that money would be part of your salary. With the greater amount of money you could shop around for the best services at the lowest acceptable cost, and would most likely come out ahead. Health insurance would become true risk mitigation, which is the true definition of insurance.

The phenomenon is the same with other things that are paid for with other people’s money. The main one that comes to mind is a college education. When 50% of the cost comes from scholarships (other people’s money), 40% from loans (temporary use of other people’s money) , and a mere 10% from out-of-pocket during the college years, the payments are so far removed that the consumers of college educations don’t try to apply pressure to keep the costs down.

These are things I see the results of, but have no answer on how to reverse a trend and make it better. Too many people are enamored at the thought that other people are paying their bills to ever change back.

I should take time to quote a number of places in Gordon’s article where I feel he is spot on in his analysis. My post is already too long, however. Perhaps I’ll make a second post. If not, I leave it by saying I’m glad to have had corroboration, from a source I admire and consider authoritative, for some long-held beliefs.

Documenting America, reading, research

Book Review: John Locke’s Treatises on Government – Part 1

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John Locke significantly influenced key leaders of the American Revolution.

Approximately two years ago, when I began reading in earnest as research for Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition, I read something, not in a source document, about the Founding Fathers being interested in the writings of John Locke, particularly his two Treatises on Government, published anonymously in 1689.  I figured I’d better read them, as background for my other research. So, I found a good quality electronic copy (for free), downloaded it, and began reading.

Let me say two things to start. My reading of this was probably not in an optimum way. I read in fits and starts wherever I had a few moments of waiting with my phone, the device I read the whole thing on; and I probably wasn’t at my best as I read it. I don’t know that I retained much about the two treatises, and will someday have to read them again.

This post will be only on Locke’s Part 1. Part 2 will follow in another post in the not-too-distant future.

Filmer is less well known that Lock. Perhaps Locke’s debunking of him was effective, or so history has judged.

Part 1 was…strange. Somehow the Preface didn’t stick with me. I got into the book, and Locke is referring to “Sir Robert”, giving quotes and page numbers. I had no idea who he was referring to. At some point I had to go back and re-read the preface. Locke referred to Sir Robert Filmer, who had written a book named Patriarcha: On the Natural Power of Kings, published in 1680. In this, Filmer laid out the case for the divine right of kings and an absolute monarchy. He got some of his material from Thomas Hobbes in a 1651 book named Leviathan.

Locke said his purpose in writing his Part 1 was “to establish the throne of our greater restorer, or present King William; to make good his title…” Locke liked William, taking note that he came to the throne in what is called the Glorious Revolution of 1688. His mother was the daughter of King Charles 1st of England, so he had some place in the royal order of succession. He married his cousin, Mary, daughter of the Duke of York. William and Mary came to the throne as joint monarchs, and after Mary died in 1694 William reigned alone until his death in 1702. Some thought him to be an illegitimate king.

It’s not my purpose to go into this history, but a little of it is essential background for Locke’s Part 1. From the wording of the Preface, it’s as if Locke had a foregone conclusion and was trying to justify it with this book. However, I don’t think that’s the case. He looked at Filmer’s work, was horrified by it, and decided to refute it. That also had the result of justifying William’s reign.

As I said, the book was strange to me. The language and structure, being archaic, made the reading somewhat difficult. It seems Filmer’s argument for the divine right of kings/absolute monarchy came from the Bible. He believed Adam was born king, was thus king of all his progeny, and passed that right through his progeny. Locke gave many arguments against this, using different scenarios to refute Filmer’s different points.

Except, they all sounded the same to me, these different points. Filmer said Adam, by right of being first born of all creation, had an absolute right to rule over first his children, then their children, then that was passed down to them and their children. Locke said no, essentially that was ridiculous. That once a child reached age of majority, or responsibility, the father no longer had any right to rule over him.

One thing I did take away from this Treatise, though which I was had been better developed, is the concept of man is either born a slave (per Filmer) or born free (per Locke). It’s a continuum, with slave on one side and free on the other. I’m assuming Filmer chose the slave side, and hence, as slaves, all mankind is servant to whoever holds the legitimate kingship. Locke rejected that. Maybe he did state the continuum thought clearly, and in my diminished reading capacity I missed it. I’m going to look for that again for sure.

Over and over this went, for 200 pages. Shades of claims by Filmer and counter-claims by Locke. It started to all run together. Perhaps, had I read in better conditions, I would have felt it more informative. No, informative isn’t the right word, but I can’t think of a better one. I didn’t take as much away from it as I’d hoped to.

I believe the framers of our country and government were most interested in Locke’s second treatise, which dealt with government. They were opposed to monarchy, so could probably not have cared less about Locke’s defense of King William in the first treatise.

I have this as an e-book, in my Google Books account, so I’ll keep it. I’ll read it at least one more time. Except, I feel that I ought to read Filmer before re-reading Locke. And, possibly, I’ll have to read Hobbes before I read Filmer. And, I imagine when I read Hobbes I’ll find he relied on someone else and I’ll have to read that.

Where does it end?

Adam Of Jerusalem, Health, reading, Writing

Editing Consumes Me

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This will be a short post today. Day before yesterday I began to get the symptoms of a cold, yesterday they came on strong, and today they linger. I may be a little better. Maybe.

So, yesterday and today I took life easy. I typed edits in Adam Of Jerusalem. I followed the stock market and made a few trades. In the evening I read four more chapters in AOJ to Lynda. I didn’t do any of my exercises yesterday, and don’t plan on doing any today. Yesterday I also went to the sun room to read, though I think I slept more than read. I hope to do the same today.

It’s been nearly two years since I had a cold. As I’m essentially a home body nowadays, I’m not sure where I got it. Perhaps it was going Monday to the Martin Luther King memorial service at our church. I didn’t speak up close with anyone; perhaps it was in the air.

I’m hoping that by tomorrow, Saturday, I’ll be back to 80%, and to full strength and health on Sunday.

Engineering, Genealogy, Life Group lessons, reading, Writing

Retirement: The First Three Days

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My first official day of retirement was January 1, 2019. Having gone into the office the day before, and actually having done some meaningful work that day, Tuesday the 1st seemed more like the holiday I would have as a working man rather than a retirement day. We saw our daughter’s family off around 10:30 a.m., then we alternated resting and cleaning the rest of the day. We said we wouldn’t clean until Tuesday, but a few things were obviously easy, so we did it. That night we watched episodes of our favorite show, The Curse of Oak Island on the History Channel.

So Wednesday the 2nd was the first true retirement day. I was up around 6:15 a.m., got coffee, and headed to The Dungeon. I opened my brokerage programs, and realized I hadn’t set up my trading spreadsheet for 2019. I did that in a little more than an hour, and was ready when the market opened. After that, what to do? I read e-mails, Facebook, checked 23andMe, got breakfast, and watched the market.

I decided to work on my genealogy pursuits, and began better assimilation of data I’ve accumulated on the Penson family. Florence Elizabeth Penson married William Henry Foreman and gave birth to Bert Foreman, my new-found birth grandfather. That became my work for the rest of the day—along with watching the market. I took time to clean up Christmas stuff strewn across the work table in the storeroom. The evening was devoted to TV and reading. Thus ended a first, delightful day of retirement.

And, through the day, I had some e-mails for CEI Engineering. Since I have a contract with them for limited work, I still have my CEI phone and computer. The phone will soon be mine, but the computer will some day go back to them. One e-mail, from my former supervisor, included a request to do something, so I get to charge a little time to them. Just a 1/4 hour, but I’ll get paid for it. The extra income is something I’m looking forward to.

Yesterday, Thursday, wasn’t much different, except that I slept until almost 7:30 a.m. I watched the market and made one trade. I kept working on the Penson genealogy data. We did more clean-up, and Lynda did some laundry. She’s still not over the flu she caught just after Christmas, and her cough is terrible. We continued to eat leftovers, and the refrigerators are more or less back to normal. I cleaned out several things yesterday.

In the evening I worked on the outline for a series of Life Group lessons titled A Walk Through Holy Week. My co-teacher suggested this as something he’d like to do someday. A couple of months ago I looked into it, and realized we would never be able to teach it all in one Spring season. Last night I divided it into six parts, and planned the lessons for Part 1, which we will begin teaching in February this year. I still have some planning to do into two or three of the lessons, and will do so tonight.

So here it is, Friday January 4. I got up just after 7:00 a.m., which I think I’ll try to make my regular time. I made coffee, sat with Lynda a bit (she’s still coughing much and hard), called in one of her prescriptions, made a grocery list, and went to The Dungeon. Market futures are up, so it looks like a good opening. A Word document concerning the Penson family is open, and I’ve made some entries into it. And here I am, working on my regular Friday blog.

Truth is, I don’t yet know what my retirement routine will be. I have so many things I want to accomplish. My main January task is supposed to be inventorying my trunkful of Stars and Stripes, passed down to me from my dad. Perhaps I’ll get to that today. I’m going to make a grocery run, help out with more laundry, finish this Penson genealogy for now, finish the Life Group lessons work, and then, who knows? Maybe some reading. Oh, yes, I’ve been doing some of that in the evenings, in magazines I’ve collected but intend to read and not keep.

 

Adam Of Jerusalem, Church History Novels, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Mark Twain, miscellaneous, reading, Short Stories, Writing

Writing, Blogging, and Cleaning, Oh My!

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Lots of activity going on in my household right now, considering I’m the only one there right now. My mother-in-law is now in an assisted living facility near us, and my wife is away for a couple of weeks, helping our daughter and her family move. I was there the last couple of weekends with her. Their truck loading days are today and tomorrow. I would go and help, but with my shoulder not yet fully healed, I decided not to.

So, batching it, what have I been up to?

Writing, for one thing. I’m back on Adam Of Jerusalem, first book in my church history novel series, and the prequel to Doctor Luke’s Assistant. I wrote three evenings this week, adding about 4,000 words to what I had before, and last night getting to the first plot point. While I’ve known for quite a while the story I want to tell with this book, I wasn’t sure what scenes I would have, or how I would get that story told. Despite that, my writing speed is good. Well, last night was a little slower. I added only 1,000 words, possibly because I wasn’t feeling well. Went to bed early.

Another thing occupying my time—so far in just a small way—is blog maintenance. By that I mean I want to go back to old posts and clean up the categories those posts are tagged with. Some I didn’t tag at all, while others were tagged in a way that doesn’t make sense given how my blog has progressed. This is busywork, but I think needed. I have way too many categories and would like to trim it some. Hopefully after this work, the number will be.

Third, I’m doing cleaning in the house. This has been the slowest of the three things in the post title. I’m getting a little done every day. I ironed some shirts that came out of the wash a month or more ago with wrinkled areas, but I haven’t yet put the iron and ironing board away. I disposed of a pile of mail, but haven’t yet filed the things that need filing. I’ve cleaned one or two things off the kitchen table each day, but it’s still a mess. I’ve made a good start on decluttering all my paper, and have tossed many, many sheets, yet still have piles of paper where there shouldn’t be.

Through all of this, I’m still trying to lose weight, and have spent a lot of time walking, most days at noon and some in the evenings at home. I’m at my lowest weight for three or four years, though still have 35 pounds to go to get to the upper end of my target weight range. Ate properly Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week, then kind of lost it last night. Back on track today, I think.

So what do I have in store for this Memorial Day weekend? Writing for sure. By the end of the day Monday I’d like to be a minimum of 7,500 words further along. I believe that’s achievable.

I have more cleaning to do. I’ll progress through that slowly, but by the end of the day Monday: the kitchen table will be clean; the kitchen floor will be mopped; the unfinished piles of decluttering remainders will be gone through and trashed or stowed. Also, all the oak pollen strings will be swept, raked, blown, or by hand put into a pile, and moved to the compost pile. A few weeds will be pulled as well.

I also hope to go through a minimum of 100 of my oldest blog posts not yet touched and clean-up the categories. I did 25 the other day. I believe 100 should be no problem.

For what it’s worth, I plan on some reading for relaxation. I’m on the last 70 pages of Mark Twain’s short stories. I hope to finish that this weekend as well. I believe that’s possible.

I’ll report back with a blog post, probably on Tuesday instead of Monday, and let you know how I did.

Bible study, Carlyle, home improvements, miscellaneous, Preserve The Revelation, reading

Bread and Boxes

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My time is very limited these days, almost all of my own making. I’m working hot and heavy on my novel, Preserve The Revelation. Over the weekend I added slightly more than 5,500 words to it. That exceeded my three-day goal of 5,000 words, so that was good. I was writing a difficult part, where a character dies, and another, closely associated character must carry on. But I’m through the worst of that. The worst going forward is I really haven’t planned out this next section very well, so I may find writing it quite laborious.

Two other writing tasks I’m working on is my chronological composition bibliography of Thomas Carlyle, and further study with writing intentions into my harmony of the gospels, specifically the Resurrection account. When I finished up my latest round of revisions, intended to be my last, in June, I did a little search for references I might add to the resurrection account. I found a couple, which led me to doing some writing on an auxiliary document last week and on the weekend. And some reading on it. This is perhaps totally unnecessary, but it’s something I want to do, something that gives me satisfaction.

Saturday saw me doing the typical chores around our house. I moved a large bookcase from the garage to the basement, to help close-in the temporary bedroom we’ve set up there. I loaded the shelves with Christmas decorations and who knows what all was in the boxes I placed. I now know I need to put a light back there, and will do so next weekend, or I might hire an electrician to do it, as I have a couple of other things I need for one to do.

Sunday was fairly restful. I wasn’t scheduled to teach Life Group, though I always prepare to since my co-teacher (on alternating weeks) is a veterinarian and can be called out at any time), but late on Saturday I received a text from him, saying his on-call weekends had switched and he would be on call Sunday. That meant I did have to prepare to teach. I did that by getting up early Sunday morning (thought in fact I had been preparing during the week). He didn’t get called in, and so he taught; I participated as a student. I napped in the sunroom after church, though not for long before I headed to The Dungeon for my writing.

In the evening we felt the 5.0 earthquake that hit Cushing Oklahoma, about 200 miles from us. That was minor excitement. We got pizza instead of having to prepare food, which was good. I pulled out a writing book to read, since I’ve finished all other books and was ready for something new and since I hadn’t read a writing book in a couple of years at least. But for some reason a wave of tiredness washed over me. I’ve learned not to fight it, so I set my book aside, slouched a little in my easy chair, laid my head against the back, and dozed. Maybe for an hour all together. I woke up about 10:15 p.m. to find a different tv program on.

At that point I tried reading a little more, discovered I couldn’t, so went to the kitchen to prepare for the week. I washed a few dished that needed washing, then packed my breakfasts for the week and my lunch for Monday. Yes, I eat breakfast at work. I leave the house at 6:30 a.m. so as to miss traffic, and have a quiet time at work to read the Bible, pray, and do miscellaneous things (such as write this blog post). I did all of that, finishing right around 11:00 p.m.

At that point I headed to bed. I no sooner laid my head down when I realized I had forgot to put bread for my breakfasts in my food bag. I had done the same thing last week, and got to work and had a boiled egg, slice of ham, slice of cheese, and no bread. I debated getting up to add that, but decided instead to say, “Add bread to my food bag” over and over till I fell asleep, hoping I’d remember it in the morning.

Another unfinished task that crossed my mind as I was trying to lock in remembering the bread was that, during the yard sale last weekend, I moved many empty boxes out of the garage and strewed them on the side of the house or under trees nearby. Lynda reminded me on Sunday that those needed to be brought in. I figured I’d better do them in the morning before going to work, so I started to lock that task in by saying to myself, “Remember the boxes, remember the bread.”

I’m happy to say that this morning I remembered both. I put five slices of bread in two baggies and put them in my food bag. As I left the house through the garage I brought in the boxes and put them where they needed to be, at least temporarily. The need to do that was emphasized to me when I hear on the radio that rain is probable today. These  tasks, and one other within the house, made me about eight minutes late, caused me to be behind two slow moving truck, and then in a long, long line of vehicles heading in to Bentonville. So I was at work late. Alas.

However, so long as I crowd writing into my life, so long as I have so many other obligations that can’t be shunted aside, I will have to compromise somewhere. Driving in heavier traffic was this morning’s compromise. Who knows what it will be for the rest of the day, or tomorrow, or the next day?

Oh, and sorry for missing to post something here last Friday. Too many tasks, something had to give.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, home improvements, letters, Preserve The Revelation, reading, self-publishing, Writing

Staying Busy

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I’m a day late with this post. The last two months, since I established my Monday and Friday posting schedule, I normally try to write my Monday post on the weekend, or at worst on Monday morning before the start of my workday. I’ve missed a couple of times, but I’ve been doing better about regular posting.

This weekend, however, I did nothing concerning a post. By the end of Sunday I realized that, but it was too late in the day to write it. I decided I’d do it Monday. Monday came and went, and alas, I did nothing on it. Shame on me. I’ll do better going forward.

So what’s keeping me so busy that I didn’t do my blog post? On Saturday it was first work around the house, followed by writing on Preserve The Revelation. The house work included a major cleaning job on the refrigerator, thinning the blackberry vines, cutting a lot of low hanging branches, and weeding in our back yard. I also had chair set-up at church, and trips to Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Sunday was Life Group and church, followed by lunch at a community event. That put me home around 1:45 p.m. I should have written.

Instead, I began work on the print cover of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, using G.I.M.P. to assemble the graphics. As always, G.I.M.P. defeated me. I was able to create a palette the size of the cover, and add and size the front and back covers. But on the back cover I needed to hide three corporate logos. I had planned how to do this, and got two done quite easily. However, when it came to the third one, I stalled. I was using the same procedure as for the first two: cover it with an opaque layer. Only on this one I had to add text. Somehow the layer that is the back cover was deselected, and I couldn’t add the opaque circle. Without the circle, the text was meaningless. I worked more than three hours on it, and finally quit in frustration. I went back to Wal-Mart to pick up one thing I hadn’t the day before, then spent the evening reading.

Yesterday was the normal busyness of work and house. In the evening I went to The Dungeon, intending on writing. But there, on my work table, was the box of photos from our time in Kuwait, with several batches of photos out on the table. I had dug into the box last Wednesday to select some photos to scan and post on Thursday. In the box I found batches of photos not in envelopes, hence not matched with their negatives. I decided getting those photos matched was a better use of my time than writing. I don’t say that facetiously, either. Some day we’ll pass those photos on to our children, and having them properly organized is critical. It was a good use of my time—not that I finished, but I made significant progress. But by the time 9:00 p.m. came I wanted to be about my evening reading. No time to write the blog.

So here I am on Tuesday, writing Monday’s post, and it’s about nothing but why I didn’t write on Monday. But it lets my few readers know what’s going on in my world.

Since the weekend, one of my cover designers contacted me, saying he’d done work on it. We discussed it. Hopefully he’ll complete it very soon. In case not, I’ve contacted a third cover designer and am in discussions with her. Today I sent off a letter to an influencer, a seminary professor, concerning Doctor Luke’s Assistant and things he’s written that dovetail nicely with it. This is by snail mail, as the seminary doesn’t post faculty e-mails. We’ll see what comes of it.

Tonight, when the work day is through, I plan on staying about an hour after to do some research and typing on our fact internet and computer. When I get home, I have one small task to do in the yard, then I’ll heat some soup for supper, and descend to The Dungeon. No photos tonight. I need to add at least 1,000 words tonight, and 3,000 in total, before I will allow myself to return to those photos and finish that big task. I’m looking forward to it.